I quit my first job when I was 22. As in, I quit a job for the first time 

I actually may have gotten fired 

The most irresponsible thing I have ever done. The reason I came to Auckland — the internship post-graduation, that was the plan, obviously.

and I lasted 3 weeks.

No worries though guys! I found a different job!

One where my manager could not, obviously, go by her government name, so initials it is! I imagine her parents named her some name that just doesn’t fit quite snug enough because this is not a pub in which you can be known by whatever name that may have been but her parents could not have ever known that, bless them — no, this pub is for cool people to work at and corporate cunts to drink at. My tall and deadly gorgeous, destined for a much cooler life in London co-worker cannot decide whether these corporate cunts or the blonde girls, draped in blazers are her least favorite genre of patrons we serve on a dreaded Friday night. She is a DJ, obviously. And her name includes an umlaut, because of course it does. And I lost $50 to her in my first week of work when I bet her that she would not dip a piece of focaccia into the dirty dishwater and eat it and babe you have to fully swallow it or else I’m not paying you.

“When I first came to drink here 8 months ago, cool people came here to drink.” 

I, having first came here for the coconut margs about 2 weeks ago, nod my head in agreement, because obviously. 

I wonder what I will say about our customers 8 months from now. 

I wonder if she and I will stay tangled forever or if we, our journeys as threads, will cross and loop only once or twice, neatly, and then continue on, in separate directions for the rest of our time here on this Earth.

Cool people work here. The worst kind of people drink here. That’s the equilibrium. That’s how the world works. We are cool. Everyone else is anything but.

Before I left for New Zealand, I stopped in LA to see one of my best friends. She told me that one of her best friends, one I had come to feel I knew, the way you feel connected to the best friend of a best friend, had joined a cult. I chuckled until I realized it was a seriously troubling matter. She had, as the story goes, gone traveling by herself and fallen in love with a strange, older man, changed her name, and started living off of his land with his other wives and him. Something like that.

About to embark on my own solo journey across the world, I understood that this was not an option — this could not happen. I told this best friend of mine to call often, make sure I still seemed like myself, half-kidding, half-dead-fucking-serious. 

You think nothing like this will ever happen to you until it does.

This chapter is not about how I joined a cult. At least not a dangerous one. At least I don’t think it’s dangerous.

Would I think it dangerous from the inside?

I was in a secret society in college. The instagram account dedicated to exposing our organization claimed us to be a cult, among other unfavorable and entertaining things.

I also played beach volleyball in college, for an elite program, lucky enough to be part of teams made up of women and supported by people whose message was always to buy in fully to the process of getting better and whose actions aligned with that message (most of the time).

I realized as a freshman that I valued my well-roundedness so much that I was afraid to let go of what I thought made me a person in exchange for what I thought would make me a beach volleyball player, as if those things existed separately, on two different planes. At my breaking point freshman year, I was working with a psychologist who helped me understand that that door was not locked — I could leave if this was not right for me — what a scary fucking thing because of my god of course I cannot quit you must be fucking joking???????

He was trying to get me to realize that the door was not locked.

He gave me a choice. Rather: he revealed to me that I had a choice. Which he would not have done if he didn’t think I could bear the significant weight of that knowing, I only now know.

I found myself using the phrase, “the door is not locked,” when I tried to explain my quitting to the people who asked what happened with my internship in Auckland. I had all of my reasons, I got quite revived up talking about it, not because anything egregious happened but because I was embarrassed that I came here for a job that lasted 3 weeks before I walked out. I was sure to add, quickly, just as I am doing right here, that don’t worry I had found another job that I LOVED, an obvious exaggeration because how much am I supposed to love my job? 

My first Friday at this new job (that I have managed to keep, might my fragile ego add), after closing, I asked my co-workers whether there are any cults in New Zealand. Trying to seem cool? Mysterious? Interesting? Quirky?

“Only this one.” 

And we all laughed. 

But this was not the first time I thought that perhaps some of the most successful and fulfilling organizations and operations intersected with cults.

Here, I will not do a deep dive on the structure of the cult. There are many scholarly articles that explore this subject and we, frankly, don’t have the time because you, frankly, don’t have the attention span and I, frankly, can’t be fucked to regurgitate all of that information. 

All I know is that when I was part of a division 1 NCAA team, I respected my coaches and loved my teammates. We all endured hard times and celebrated good times together. We wore uniforms that unified us and we spent a lot, a lot of time together. When I was on campus, at my secret society meetings in the late hours of the night, I felt half-forced, half-self-decided to be there. I felt hesitant at first; I knew it would take up a lot of my time and energy. We recited a creed together before each meeting. We talked about our founders. We wore a crest on our matching jackets. We took attendance at the meetings. 

The yoga studio I joined when I got to Auckland had one review of their local community that included the descriptor “cultish.” And I’m not sure if the person meant it to be a bad thing. But it intrigued me. And I now have a monthly membership. 

The job that I quit was perhaps the opposite of a cult. There was no buy-in from anyone. Everyone always wanted to leave. The only ritualistic practice was that of senior leadership pretending to work while line-workers polished silverware for hours on end. There was no formal training or initiation. No one respected their leaders. Or anyone for that matter. There was no sense of team work, no culture of caring, not even a fabricated one. 

And so I left. 

“The door is not locked,” I said to people. 

And it never should be. 

And that opinion may be one of privilege, because choice is a privilege, after all. I did not need that job. And perhaps that conversation around choice is an important ingredient in the cult research articles that you haven’t yet searched up. We may never know. But to convince someone on belief alone that they will not survive without whatever it is you have to sell is certainly fulfills some degree of manipulation. 

How are we, then, supposed to know we are in the right places? If there is nothing to tether us down, to lock us in, what is keeping us from leaving? Must there be something keeping us from leaving in order for us to choose to stay? 

Perhaps the mark of an organization worth committing to is its proximity to cult-like enthusiasm from its employees and patrons (the same) living in delicate, harmonious balance with its allowance for a seamless transition out. 

Or perhaps it’s just whether you get a staff meal. Or a staff beer at the end of your shift.

Or whether you continue to dance while you work. 

Or whether you wake up every morning and still wish to open your window and drink in the cold, winter air. And listen to the birds. 

I explained it to my dad like this:

“You know how when you get a cut or an infection, all of your immune cells or whatever rush to the scene of the crime and block up all the pathways and that’s what creates inflammation? It felt like I was inflamed. My pathways were inundated with “get out get out get out get out get out” and it was all I could think about: quitting leaving getting the fuck out. And the volume wasn’t going to turn down, the swelling wasn’t going to decrease until I did something about it.”

That’s what coping is — drinking instead of quitting. Smoking instead of quitting. Scrolling instead of quitting. It’s like taking a Tylenol instead of hydrating. Or sleeping. Or stretching. And just like with antibiotics, your body gets used to your coping mechanisms, they stop working and so you take more, and your tolerance goes up even more so you drink more, smoke more, scroll more. And then the problem is no longer only the thing you’re running from but also your cures.

Listen to your body when it tells you to gtfo.

xx

Until You Know Better

Do all the dishes in the sink even if they happen to not be yours today. The games cease to exist if you refuse to play them.

Munch on some cold Yorkshire pudding in the dish pit — sometimes that’s what it takes, my love.

Thank Goodness. She knows best and She is always on time.

*Here, I would like to add that danger is real and scary men exist and this entry is experimental and rambling. Don’t join a cult.

Great Artists Steal

Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, somewhat of a sacred text to me, uses the metaphor of a hot yoga class that does not agree with the body to demonstrate that the door is not ever locked so why on earth wouldn’t you just leave?